Working on this blog, I feel that I have improved my vocabulary and understanding theories. I was able to broaden my knowledge in the world of art further by attending the given lectures. The work count helped me discuss on the topic rather than going off topic and made me express limited. The word count gives me a structure to work with.

I enjoyed tasks such as 6 and 8 because I was able to use my work and experiment for instance, I learned how to appropriate pieces, something I never knew if can do. This task I really enjoyed doing incorporating my work and into someone else’s which I found so fascinating. I struggled immensely on Task 7, for the art terminology and trying to understand on what the writers were conveying. It took me so long to analyse the two texts and try and link connections. Although, this task helped to break down the text and simplify them.

With the short time we were given to complete these tasks, I realised as the tasks kept being given on how to split time for both modules, studio and research. Overall, I found this blog really helpful in ways expanding my knowledge in the history of art. It has pushed me into wanting to read more artist books from Task 2 and experiment more with appropriation. I am pleased I explored various tasks.

From one of my drawing workshops, I was able to create a mode of practice using cotton buds, using the tip for mark making, creating an image of dots with acrylic paint. It was inspired by Seurat’s pointillism work, although he used a brush to produce those marks. He was one of the pioneers of pointillism, a technique that developed in 1886. However, I’ve evolved the style of pointillism using cotton buds. It is a very feasible practise to do as the material is a day to day item. I will be working with this method in my contemporary project. Although it was a challenging to do the style pointillism as confuses the mind to blend the colours and place it accurately. To develop this further, I used a hole puncher in some areas to make it look chaotic. I want to keep working with this technique as challenges with me in doing complex techniques.

For this task I chose to look at is Anselm Kiefer’s piece called Deutschlands Geisteshelden (German Spiritual Heroes), created in 1973. The large monumental painting caused controversy and was met with widely conflicting opinions. His work often deals with themes related to German History and national identity, including the Holocaust. As he was expressing about something that huge happened in the German History which was the holocaust. It had created a lot of controversy at the time as it was post-war and it was a taboo subject matter. The painting depicts an empty wooden room reminiscent of medieval architecture with tapers burning at intervals along the wall. The emptiness creates an unsettling feeling to the viewers. Many audience saw it differently as of the title creating confusion. The theory I noticed through his work is how he wanted to emote his feeling and opinions based on the catastrophic events that occurred at the time. He was one of the few artists to talk about the issue through his work, creating a legacy of the nation’s brutality.

Steinberg discusses about a shift in the picture plane from the “old Masters practice of using of devises to draw attention to the art. On how the conception of the picture is representing a world with a human posture. He talks about the works of Rauschenberg, Duchamp and Dubuffet, how they still hang them on wall. Richard Sierra’s text is about removing the piece from the site specific and talks about working outside the studio surround by Urbanism and Industry. He discusses using the knowledge, skills and capabilities of a mill, plant or fabricator making his work.  How the concept of site specific sculpture has nothing to do with opinion or belief. Similarity is that both authors talk about that there was a shift in their individual areas of focus during that time around the 1950s.

Sea by Alice Kettle

About a week ago, I visited the Winchester Discovery Centre to see Alice Kettle’s exhibition. I was looking at this piece for probably more than half an hour, it was so thought provoking as of the different mark makings and different mediums put into one massive piece. The use of colour, the bright neon orange against the shades of blue.

This piece is called Sea, one of Kettle’s first several planned works, which she made for the ‘Thread Bearing Witness’ Exhibition. This piece represents the migrant crisis. It was her perception, from a broad concern for groups of anonymous people as viewed through the distorting lens of the media, to a greater understanding of the impact on individuals and a search for a way to show support and represent them, through the shared mediums of textiles and stich.

I had imagined it, how it would be completed in a smaller size and made it more elaborate. There was so much fine detail in the bigger piece, although as a challenge I would want to see how it would transform smaller. I would want to see more threads hanging off the piece creating a chaotic atmosphere in the room. The chaos about how the refugees need to escape and forget their identities. Also, I want to complicate the lines to make more of a confusion. Realistically, creating a piece like that would be a struggle as it requires a lot of patience. Doing it on a massive piece itself, is challenging and inspiring.

Gestural

Abstract

Depressed

Expression

Imperfect

Gloomy

Incomplete

Shattered

Anxiety

Reflections

This is a piece, that I am producing in my Shared Drive Project. I have chosen this piece as it something, I‘ve began to discover as I’ve recently been interested in painting in the form of abstract. This is very unusual for me as I’ve always been told to paint in realism and portraiture. I’ve started coming out my comfort zone. I am starting to understand abstract expressionism and I want to explore it further. I feel this style it easier for me to emote my feelings into my artwork from personal issues. I’ve also stopped bothering about unfinished pieces because when the story or meaning is being disrupted, it allows the audience to assume what they want. It makes the audience fill in the gaps. Looking at Jasper Johns’ gestural brush strokes and Anselm Kiefer’s sorrow and use of colour have been my inspirations.

I have appropriated a famous photograph called the Afghan girl, taken by Stephen Curry. It is one of my favourite photographs published from the National Geographic Magazine. I took a self-portrait using a tripod and trying convey the girl’s similar emotions although my piece was taken in a different composition and angle. I then used Photoshop and merged both images together using the opacity tool creating both works looking transparent and enhancing the illusion. In my photograph, I tried replicating the image wearing a scarf over my head. Using a similar lighting with the dark background. I wanted to show my identity in the image and convey two different perspectives to the audience.

CLAYTON,E. (2017), Painting India, Italy, Lump Humphries

The book ‘Painting India’ consists a catalogue of Howard Hodgkin’s paintings, interviews, reminiscences and essays written by Eleanor Clayton and Shanay Jhaveri.  Hodgkin’s main source of inspiration is India ever since he visited it in 1964, he has a longstanding engagement with the country. He visited it for over 50 years travelling continuously making lifelong annual trips and produced more one hundred paintings.

Clayton discusses about how the ‘Somewhere else’ is India for Hodgkin. On how he felt highly productive in the environment. He believes that everyone has a somewhere else. I truly believe in that too, being in environment you feel comfortable in helps your think clearly and India was Hodgkin’s. She explains how Hodgkin grew passion and interest for India. How he falls for the usual clichés of India. I feel there is more than vivid colours about India such as the society, traditional values, religions and more. Hodgkin quotes “Many aspects of the subjects which I paint pictures about would lose their meaning if they were too specifically presented, and that’s why I’m forced into metaphor ….a metaphor for emotion”(2017,p.15). I can understand on what he is trying to communicate, his paintings are abstract landscapes with gestural brush strokes. The layers within them evoke atmospheric conditions.

Jhaveri’s essay is on Hodgkin’s Indian Exchanges, meeting various Indian artists called Anish Kapoor, Dhruva Mistry, Mrinalini Mukherjee and much more. It also mentions about his and Khakhar’s friendship. It discovers why Hodgkin wanted more knowledge from Indian artists and explores on curating for the Six Indian Painters, hosted by the Tate Gallery, where he selected the artists along with Kapur.

Recently, I visited the Royal Academy of Arts to see the Jasper Johns Exhibition called ‘Something Resembling Truth’. He explores the complex transformations of objects and images throughout his work.

The piece I found very interesting is called ‘Painting with Two balls’ completed in 1960. Johns’s  use of brushstrokes and colour creates a chaotic landscape with confused emotions. The white stencilling of the letters against the vivid background enhances an bold impact. He has painted it on three separate panels with two wooden balls forced into a darkened slit between the top two panels. By creating a gap in the painted surface, he wants to create a world of painting allowing the viewers to leap through the canvas. I feel after seeing this painting in flesh, it changes my perspective of the way of thinking on painting, it made me think of creating and incorporating different elements into my work. I realised to create a painting beyond what it is suppose to be. There is a great value in witnessing this piece in flesh as I was able to understand the layers of meaning through visually and verbally. Initially, I didn’t understand why he incorporated two balls but I had an audio guide along the exhibition. I then had understood on why he named and used two balls because it was an anatomical reference within the work itself reflected on his personal concerns. He is a gay and reserved man, he had a little respect for the overtly masculine displays. He was painting his feelings in abstract form.

The whole atmosphere makes it very thrilling and intriguing as there were more of his paintings around the rooms, they represent the styles he explored in his years. I was allowed to walk around the room understanding why he was working on this theme at the time.

ROSENG P-5 584

During the summer, I visited the Sammlung Rosengart Collection in Luzern, Switzerland. The collection holds more than 300 works by different artists, it was assembled by a Swiss Art dealer called Siegried Rosengart and his daughter, AngeIa, who followed her father’s business. They have collected majority of Pablo Piccasso’s and Paul Klee’s, which makes the museum’s main strengths. They have 32 of Picasso’s paintings, mainly of his later years and also, up to nearly 100 drawings, watercolour prints and sculptural works. His later work often combines elements of his earlier styles.

It was really inspiring looking at pieces from diverse artists that explored various different styles. There was Kandisky’s  abstract works, Seurat’s pointillism, Matisse’s Fauvism and Post-Impressionism and many more.  Upstairs, there was room filled of photographs of how Picasso was working in the studios. I was able look into the world he works around in.

Dora Maar 1943 Picasso

Moody Forms, 1936 Kandinsky

One of my favourite paintings by Piccasso’s was a portrait of Dora Maar, 1943. It reminded me of ‘Weeping Woman’ at the Tate Modern when I visited it a few years ago. Although, the colour schemes are different but the emotion I saw was similar. The sadness in both paintings were thought provoking the feeling towards me. Majority of his paintings were portraits of women, I was so curious on why and found that he was known for his intense personality, he had a complex series of overlapping wives and lovers during his lifetime. He continued to produce art and love women with undiminished force until his death in 1973 at 91. Also, another favourite of mine was Kandinsky’s Moody Forms, 1936, his lines were so playful and floating against the dark background. It reminded of music playing and sound.

After seeing “Weeping Women” in flesh, I was so amused and intrigued on how cubism works. I wanted to see more of his cubist paintings so I was interested to visit the Rosengart. The use of colour is something different, he uses block colours to represent the figures and shapes.  Looking up closely, I noticed he uses various different tones from that one colour and blends it really well. This exhibition left me with wanting paint more and explore different styles of art.